Box Office: 'Couples,' 'Paranormal' Make History

Although the raw numbers from Friday don't look that auspicious, both Couples Retreat and Paranormal Activity made history yesterday. The new Vince Vaughn comedy set one of those highly specific marks: It's the biggest one-day total for a live-action comedy ever in the month of October. Admittedly, the $12.3 million is a big day, and it's significantly more than I expected it to make, but it's not one of those records you're likely to remember. On the other hand, Paranormal Activity, the super-low-budget horror movie, is the new record holder for a limited release: No movie playing in fewer than 200 theaters has ever made as much in one day ($2.7 million) and according to Variety, if it hits $5 million for the weekend, it will be the biggest weekend in history for a movie playing in so few theaters. Now that's something to crow about. Couples was always going to be the number one movie this weekend; it was just a matter of how big the margin would be. The way it looks, the flick should double the business of likely second-place finisher Zombieland. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is in third place after Friday, and the Toy Story double bill is in fifth, behind Paranormal Activity. We told you on Thursday that Paranormal had a chance to crack the top ten. I'm not sure it will hold on to fourth place - horror movies almost always lose a little bit of momentum after opening day, which for the majority of the audience, yesterday was - but it's certainly going to be among the ten biggest movies of the weekend. One of the things leading to the success of Paranormal Activity is the marketing, in which the studio encouraged moviegoers to "demand it" in their cities. Because of the online response for the film, it will go into wide release next weekend, when it will most likely do great business again. Not that it needs to; the $10 - $15,000 movie will have earned well over $6 million by the end of this weekend. It will never approach the box office performance of The Blair Witch Project, which hit about $225 million worldwide, but that film kicked off the viral marketing trend that so many movies now try to emulate. In fact, plenty of commentators note similarities between Blair Witch and Paranormal, and they're hard to ignore. We'll give you the full recap tomorrow; it's going to be interesting to see how much of a spoiler this little horror movie can be.

Comments

[ned]

You heard it here, Paranormal makes an EASY 100 million if Paramount actually puts it on a few screens like they say they will. The movie's scary as hell and kids are going to love it. Saw and the Stepfather, the other so-called horror movies of the next few weeks won't have a chance against it once it gets out there.

[MRPigg]

I WAS going to see it next weekend at the festival, but it appears as if the International SciFi/Horror Film Fest has been Bigtimed.

[Amy]

I can't wait to see the movie. I am a big fan of Vince Vaughn and it seems very funny from the previews.